Kerry Heads to Mideast for More Israeli-Palestinian Talks

The upcoming visit will be U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s 10th visit to the Middle East as he tries to end the conflict. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
is under pressure on his 10th visit to the Middle East to show
tangible progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian settlement after
passing the midpoint of a nine-month timetable he set for
resolution of core differences.

The top U.S. diplomat, set to return to the region on New
Year’s Day, will meet in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and in Ramallah with Mahmoud Abbas, president
of the Palestinian Authority, Jen Psaki, a State Department
spokeswoman, said Dec. 28 in a statement.

One symbolic sign of movement would be a face-to-face
meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders as Kerry
seeks to narrow differences -- over borders, security, the
rights of refugees and the status of Jerusalem -- that have
confounded U.S.-led efforts at mediation for years.

“Right now, the effort is to reach a framework agreement
that will guide the negotiations in the direction of a final
deal that will end the conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said
yesterday in an interview on Israel’s Army Radio. While “the
framework agreement could be more detailed, or less detailed,”
it has to let the two sides know where the talks are heading, he
said.

Shapiro tempered expectations for Kerry’s trip this week,
saying, “I don’t know if there will be a breakthrough in this
particular visit, but he may return here later in January.”

Face-to-Face Prospects

So far, Kerry has shuttled between Netanyahu and Abbas, who
haven’t spoken in person since September 2010. Members of
Kerry’s team have conducted direct talks with negotiators for
the two sides.

“We are closer than we have been in years,” Kerry said of
the talks earlier this month, without offering details. The
peace process broke down more than three years ago in a dispute
over Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

“I think the Secretary believes that it is possible to
reach a framework agreement that would provide guidelines for
how to negotiate on the permanent status issues,” Dennis Ross,
a former Mideast negotiator who is counselor at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, said in an e-mail
yesterday. “What may be possible is not a final deal but
progress on the principles or guidelines on how to resolve the
core issues. A final deal would take much longer to work through
but it makes sense to try to achieve meaningful progress before
that.”

Pessimism Persists

Netanyahu said this month that the burden is on the
Palestinians to show they’re willing to satisfy Israel’s core
needs for security and recognition as the “nation-state of the
Jewish people.” A poll released this month by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion found that a
majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip expect
the Kerry-led talks to fail.

Further complicating Kerry’s next visit, Israel is expected
to announce that it will build additional settlements on
territory that Abbas wants as a Palestinian state. At the same
time, Israel is to release additional Palestinian prisoners.

Two previous rounds of prisoner releases also were
accompanied by announcements of new construction.

The Israeli government’s pursuit of new settlement
construction is a surmountable obstacle for the Obama
administration, according to U.S. analysts of the Middle East.

Kerry “should keep his powder dry” in reacting to the
settlements, Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, said.

‘Balancing Act’

The linking of a settlement push with a prisoner release
wasn’t accidental, said David Schenker, a former Pentagon policy
aide on Arab politics who is now at the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy.

“The timing of the announcement is an unfortunate, but
predictable consequence of the ongoing balancing act of the
Israeli government,” Schenker said by e-mail. “Prisoner
release -- of Palestinians, many with blood on their hands -- is
extremely controversial and politically difficult for the
government of Israel.”

On July 29, when Kerry announced the accord to hold the
talks, he said, “Our goal is to achieve a final-status
agreement over the next nine months.”

Kerry won a commitment from both sides to stick with the
negotiations at least that long, regardless of the difficulties
that might arise, a State Department official, who asked not to
be identified discussing closed-door deliberations, said at the
time.